Evolution of the Fermi surface of BiTeCl with pressure

We report measurements of Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in the giant Rashba semiconductor BiTeCl under applied pressures up to ~2.5 GPa. We observe two distinct oscillation frequencies, corresponding to the Rashba-split inner and outer Fermi surfaces. BiTeCl has a conduction band bottom that is split into two sub-bands due to the strong Rashba coupling, resulting in two spin-polarized conduction bands as well as a Dirac point. Our results suggest that the chemical potential lies above this Dirac point, giving rise to two Fermi surfaces. We use a simple two-band model to understand the pressure dependence of our sample parameters. Comparing our results on BiTeCl to previous results on BiTeI, we observe similar trends in both the chemical potential and the Rashba splitting with pressure.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Pressure-induced superconductivity in the giant Rashba system BiTeI

At ambient pressure, BiTeI is the first material found to exhibit a giant Rashba splitting of the bulk electronic bands. At low pressures, BiTeI undergoes a transition from trivial insulator to topological insulator. At still higher pressures, two structural transitions are known to occur. We have carried out a series of electrical resistivity and AC magnetic susceptibility measurements on BiTeI at pressure up to ~40 GPa in an effort to characterize the properties of the high-pressure phases. A previous calculation found that the high-pressure orthorhombic P4/nmm structure BiTeI is a metal. We find that this structure is superconducting with Tc values as high as 6 K. AC magnetic susceptibility measurements support the bulk nature of the superconductivity. Using electronic structure and phonon calculations, we compute Tc and find that our data is consistent with phonon-mediated superconductivity.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

Coexistence of Superconductivity and Charge Density Waves in Tantalum Disulfide : Experiment and Theory

The coexistence of charge density wave (CDW) and superconductivity in tantalum disulfide (2H-TaS2) at low temperature is boosted by applying hydrostatic pressures to study both vibrational and magnetic transport properties. Around Pc, we observe a superconducting dome with a maximum superconducting transition temperature Tc=9.1 K. First-principles calculations of the electronic structure predict that, under ambient conditions, the undistorted structure is characterized by a phonon instability at finite momentum close to the experimental CDW wave vector. Upon compression, this instability is found to disappear, indicating the suppression of CDW order. The calculations reveal an electronic topological transition (ETT), which occurs before the suppression of the phonon instability, suggesting that the ETT alone is not directly causing the structural change in the system. The temperature dependence of the first vortex penetration field has been experimentally obtained by two independent methods. While a d wave and single-gap BCS prediction cannot describe the lower critical field Hc1 data, the temperature dependence of the Hc1 can be well described by a single-gap anisotropic s-wave order parameter. © 2020 authors. Published by the American Physical Society

Coexistence of Superconductivity and Charge Density Waves in Tantalum Disulfide: Experiment and Theory

The coexistence of charge density wave (CDW) and superconductivity in tantalum disulfide (2H−TaS2) at low temperature is boosted by applying hydrostatic pressures to study both vibrational and magnetic transport properties. Around Pc, we observe a superconducting dome with a maximum superconducting transition temperature Tc=9.1  K. First-principles calculations of the electronic structure predict that, under ambient conditions, the undistorted structure is characterized by a phonon instability at finite momentum close to the experimental CDW wave vector. Upon compression, this instability is found to disappear, indicating the suppression of CDW order. The calculations reveal an electronic topological transition (ETT), which occurs before the suppression of the phonon instability, suggesting that the ETT alone is not directly causing the structural change in the system. The temperature dependence of the first vortex penetration field has been experimentally obtained by two independent methods. While a d wave and single-gap BCS prediction cannot describe the lower critical field Hc1 data, the temperature dependence of the Hc1 can be well described by a single-gap anisotropic s-wave order parameter

Building a Terrorist House on Sand: A critical incident analysis of interprofessionality and the Prevent duty in schools in England.

In 2015, a duty came into effect requiring all public bodies, including schools, to engage with the UK government’s Prevent counter-terrorism strategy. This paper presents two case studies from mid-size English cities, exploring the moral prototypes and institutional identities of professional mediators who made schools aware of their duties under Prevent. Mediators in each case included serving and former police, teachers and policy advisers, the majority of whom are now private consultants or operating small 3rd sector agencies. Drawing from in-depth interviews with 14 professionals, the paper details the ways in which participants constructed their relationship to normative, deliberative and legal obligations. The paper focuses on the recurrence of a high profile critical media incident in which a young child was allegedly subject to a referral for writing about living in a ‘terrorist’ (rather than ‘terraced’) house. Reaction to this incident was archetypal of the fear of media moral panic in reconstituting mediators’ identities as Prevent professionals, illustrating how the enframing of events shifts professional moral codes, policy interpretation and implementation

Pressure tuning the Fermi level through the Dirac point of giant Rashba semiconductor BiTeI

We report measurements of Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in the giant Rashba semiconductor BiTeI under applied pressures up to similar to 2GPa. We observe one high frequency oscillation at all pressures and one low frequency oscillation that emerges between similar to 0.3-0.7 GPa indicating the appearance of a second small Fermi surface. BiTeI has a conduction band bottom that is split into two sub-bands due to the strong Rashba coupling, resulting in a 'Dirac point'. Our results suggest that the chemical potential starts below the Dirac point in the conduction band at ambient pressure and moves upward, crossing it as pressure is increased. The presence of the chemical potential above this Dirac point results in two Fermi surfaces. We present a simple model that captures this effect and can be used to understand the pressure dependence of our sample parameters. These extracted parameters are in quantitative agreement with first-principles calculations and other experiments. The parameters extracted via our model support the notion that pressure brings the system closer to the predicted topological quantum phase transition